General

After the world's richest man and Amazon founder Bezos went to heaven, his Amazon suddenly "falls to the ground".

Amazon’s second quarter fiscal 2021 financial report recently released shows that Amazon’s revenue did not meet the target for the first time in three years. On July 31, Amazon was punished by the European Union with a record fine for breaching data privacy.

It is reported that this is the largest data privacy violation fine in the history of the European Union.

Amazon will face sky-high fines

According to Bloomberg News, Amazon was fined 746 million euros (approximately US$888 million, 5.729 billion yuan) by the major EU regulators for violating the EU’s strict General Data Protection Regulations. This is the largest data in the history of the EU. Privacy disclosure fines.

In addition to the fine of 746 million euros, according to Amazon's regulatory filing documents published on July 30, the Luxembourg National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) also required Amazon to modify certain undisclosed business practices, but did not disclose more details.

It is understood that on May 25, 2018, the European Union promulgated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is considered to be the most stringent network data management regulation in the history of the European Union. Right to use.

If there is no specific, clear, and legal purpose, the enterprise collects the user's data, or although the user agrees, the enterprise does not delete it immediately after the purpose is collected and achieved, it is an illegal act.

Violation of the GDPR can be fined 10 million Euros or 2% of the previous year's global operating income, and severe cases can be fined 20 million Euros or 4% of the previous year's global operating income, with a fine of two values Take the big one.

According to understanding, Amazon’s sales in 2020 were 386.064 billion U.S. dollars, and the fine accounted for about 0.2% of Amazon’s 2020 sales.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time Amazon has been fined for violating GDPR.

On December 10, 2020, the French National Commission for Information and Freedom (CNIL) issued an announcement stating that since Google and Amazon’s French websites store users’ personal information without the user’s permission, the Standing Committee of the agency decided to open two companies, Google and Amazon, respectively. 100 million euros (approximately 800 million yuan) and 35 million euros (approximately 280 million yuan) fines were issued.

Amazon rejects EU 5.7 billion fines

Based on this, Amazon believes that the CNPD's fine decision is "unfounded" and Amazon will do its best to defend itself.

An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement:

"There has been no data leakage, and customer data has not been accessed by any third party. These facts are indisputable. Maintaining the security of our customer information and their trust is Amazon's top priority.

We strongly disagree with the CNPD's ruling, so we intend to appeal. The decision on how we display relevant advertisements to our customers depends on subjective and unverified interpretations of European privacy laws, and the proposed fines are completely disproportionate to the above interpretations. "

It is understood that a fine of 746 million euros (approximately 888 million US dollars, 5.729 billion yuan) has broken the EU data protection law fines record. At least one regulator suggested to Luxembourg that the fine should be higher...

In addition to the CNPD's fine, Margrethe Vestager, a member of the EU antitrust regulator, also accused Amazon of collecting a large amount of information to identify popular products sold by external suppliers on its website, and then providing similar products by themselves, and they have already paid lower prices. .

Investigation is currently underway...

In fact, European regulators have taken a tougher stance against large technology companies in recent years. That is to say, Amazon is not the only technology giant that has been targeted.

Although companies such as Google, British Airways, H&M, and Marriott Hotels all face European government penalties for violating regulations, these fines are tens of millions, not hundreds of millions. This means that the fine for Amazon is the highest fine since the "General Data Protection Regulation" came into effect.

But for Amazon, it can be said that the house leaks even night rains. Amazon's Q2 revenue and its outlook for the next quarter were both lower than expected, and under the double blow of fines for violating EU data protection laws. Amazon's stock price plummeted 7.56%, and its market value lost approximately $75 billion (approximately RMB 484.5 billion) overnight.

Together with its founder Bezos' personal worth has also been affected. His assets have shrunk by more than $13.9 billion, and his personal worth has fallen to $192.4 billion. Bezos's throne as the world's richest man seems to be "shifted"!